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A major creationist organization has posted billboards in New York City and San Francisco with the purpose of engaging atheists, with more to come this month.

Answers in Genesis announced Monday the posting of three billboards in the San Francisco Bay area and a "digital spectacular" sign at Times Square.

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, told The Christian Post that the decision to post the billboards came in response to atheist groups in the past erecting billboards.

"The atheists have been pretty aggressive in putting billboards up across the nation and some of the billboards have been very much focused on attacking Christianity," said Ham.

"Not just promoting their atheism, but attacking Christianity. And they put one in Times Square last Christmas that said 'Keep the Merry' with a picture of Santa Clause, 'and dump the myth' with a picture representing Christ."

Ham also told CP that "we as a ministry felt that the Bible tells us in Jude to contend for the faith and we need to be soldiers," as described in Ephesians 6.

"We're in a battle. We're in a spiritual war and we're to be out there wielding our swords, the Word of God, and so we thought, you know, people should see us publicly make a statement," said Ham.

"This was a way to publicly make a statement, to show that we're being bold about our faith, to challenge these atheists and to help direct people to answers that we have on our website."

The billboards will have the brief message "To all of our atheist friends: Thank God You're Wrong" and the URL for the Answers in Genesis website.

For the Times Square display, there will be a 15 second digital message, also available on YouTube, that will feature the same message.

According to an Answers in Genesis press release, later this month more billboards will go up in Los Angeles, including notable locales like Sunset Boulevard and the Santa Ana Freeway.

"When visitors go to AiG's website, they will see AiG's article "How Do We Know There Is a God?" and one of Ham's videos," reads the press release in part.

"With the Times Square 'digital spectacular,' the animated image will be visible for 15 seconds every two minutes. Located at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue in the heart of Manhattan, it measures a whopping 45 feet by 90 feet."

Of the objectives for the billboard ads and the digital Times Square ad, Ham told CP that he hoped that they will "get people talking about God."

"Seems right now, people are more interested in talking about the government, or the shutdown, or the budget or whatever," said Ham.

"And I'm not saying those issues aren't important but the most important thing is that people need to get back to honoring God."